Friday, 6 July 2012

The Old Curiosity Shop

The Dickens themed painting challenge begins with The Old Curiosity Shop. Art work should be presented unframed at the meeting on Tuesday September 4th.

What a challenge this is! Do you go for scenes from the book or show a shop front or interior? As always the theme can be loosely interpreted so perhaps a visit to an antique shop might inspire. A local source of ideas might be the some of the objects in the Butcher Row Museum. The temptation will be to put too much in or try to be too detailed. Perhaps an unusual still life is called for.

Dickens used wood engravings to illustrate his novel and brought together a team to produce the illustrations. You can see images of the original illustrations at http://charlesdickenspage.com/illustrations-curiosity_shop.html Phiz contributed most of the designs for the plates and George Cattermole contributed fourteen drawings. Cattermole was a great friend of Dickens and his studio was probably the inspiration for the novel. He produced many historical paintings and his studio was full of curiosities and props including a suit of armor.